Evidence of meeting #49 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was copyright.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ian Boxall  President, Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan
William Hanvey  President and Chief Executive Officer, Auto Care Association
Joshua Dickison  Copyright Officer, University of New Brunswick, Canadian Federation of Library Associations
Catherine Lovrics  Chair, Copyright Policy Committee, Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
Matthew Hatfield  Campaigns Director, OpenMedia
John Lawford  Executive Director and General Counsel, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Alexandra Kohn  Copyright and Digital Collections Librarian, McGill University, Canadian Federation of Library Associations

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON

Thanks very much.

Joël, I'm probably out of time here.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound

You are, but we might have some more time at the end, Nate.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON

I appreciate that. I have one other question if there is time. Thanks.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound

We'll get back to you.

Monsieur Lemire.

12:50 p.m.

Bloc

Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Dickison, seeing you on the screen, I am noticing that your non-verbal language is especially communicative. I think you would like to respond to what has just been said or to some of the other comments you have heard today. So I'd like to give you the opportunity to do that.

12:50 p.m.

Copyright Officer, University of New Brunswick, Canadian Federation of Library Associations

Joshua Dickison

Thank you. I'm in the comfort of my own office.

I'd just like to speak on behalf of libraries. I don't think we're getting exactly our point across by saying that we just want to repair the services and the technologies that we provide access to, be they ebooks, computers or Wi-Fi. That's a very important part of what libraries need for access to right to repair.

We are also the grassroots, the foundation, of so much innovation that goes on. So, many times I'm sitting as the copyright officer back here, and a keen student comes up and says, “I have this great idea. I need to do X, Y and Z.” We are conservative, a risk-averse institution. I have to provide the information about copyright owners as both users and owners of copyright content. I don't like being that pail of cold water on innovation.

That's a lot of what this bill has been doing. We have a decade of examples of squashing so much innovation or burying it in the YouTube videos, or wherever it is that people are finding it. We would like to give a framework for research, education—not just commercial or non-commercial, but outside that prescriptive regulatory process. We need something broader for our education.

I'm quite sure Alex Kohn from McGill has lots to offer here as well.

Thank you for the opportunity.

12:50 p.m.

Bloc

Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC

Ms. Kohn, are there other aspects of library science involving the Copyright Act that could be improved?

12:50 p.m.

Alexandra Kohn Copyright and Digital Collections Librarian, McGill University, Canadian Federation of Library Associations

Absolutely.

One thing that was brought up was the possibility of a regulatory framework for this exception. My concern, and I think the concern of our community, is that it's not going to get to those research and innovation possibilities that we have, that we provide to our users. We don't know where research and innovation is coming from next. For lots of the products and information that we provide access to, it's not large corporations that are providing us access to these products. Those corporations do go out of business. Those products do become unusable. They become damaged. Under current legislation we can't repair them to provide access to that information in the same way we would be able to if, for example, that information were available in an analog form, in a book or something similar.

I would like those concerns to be taken into account when we're talking about research and innovation and where the next big thing that's going to help consumers and users of all kinds comes from.

Thank you.

12:50 p.m.

Bloc

Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC

Thank you very much.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound

Thank you very much.

Mr. Masse, go ahead.

12:50 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Mr. Dickison, it's ironic that a washing machine was brought up, which is one of the most modified devices that we use. Modification devices include everything from socks to toilet paper—a whole series of different things.

What's your concern about lawsuits and those types of intimidation?

We've had a lot of testimony on the Copyright Act with regard to students and other innovators. We have scare tactics when it comes to some of the safety and other things that are professed to be concerns out there, but we also actually have intimidation from a legal aspect.

Can you speak to that, please.

12:55 p.m.

Copyright Officer, University of New Brunswick, Canadian Federation of Library Associations

Joshua Dickison

Sure.

As a university and academic institution, we made great efforts to engage with our commercial community around us for innovation and research. We want to engage with major corporations to help fund our students and our research. That's what we need to make this research happen and be impactful. We are not going to have those relationships with larger corporations that are going to come into our institutional setting and see us as a risk.

We still need to make those innovations and research dollars impactful, but we need to draw in the dollars to help support that. On these types of technological protection measures, broadly speaking, section 41 in and of itself stifles that ability for us to reach out to major industry and innovate the way we should to compete with jurisdictions like Japan and the U.K. with their text and data mining for commercial purposes that have come in. There are lots of areas where we are being held back.

12:55 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Thank you.

I have a really quick question for Mr. Hanvey before I run out of time.

I have the United States right behind me: two miles behind me is Detroit, Michigan. Would it be better for us to have a uniform right to repair for auto and aftermarket vehicle servicing for all of North America for consistency, given the fact that we trade and go back and forth personally and economically?

Is that the position of your organization, or has that not even been reached in terms the aftermarket in of Canada and the United States?

12:55 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Auto Care Association

William Hanvey

Ideally that would be a perfect world, sir. Just to have a joint agreement, legislation that specifies for the automotive industry, would be an ideal situation.

12:55 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Especially with data sharing coming, and some autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles, they're going to have to change service providers amongst the telecommunications companies as well to make sure of the consistency of safety in driving.

12:55 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Auto Care Association

William Hanvey

That's correct.

Even with the rental car industry that goes back and forth between the borders, the personal information is carried over the borders as well.

I agree fully.

12:55 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound

Thank you very much.

We'll now turn to Mr. Perkins for a very brief question, and then MP Erskine-Smith.

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a quick question for Mr. Dickison and Ms. Kohn.

I understand obviously the speed and the obsolescence issue for libraries and archives across Canada. In a previous life I stored some three quarter inch floppy disks with the National Archives of Canada. So I don't know what they're going to do with those from a previous minister's time during the Mulroney years.

How do you balance, as Ms. Kohn called it, the analog—I call it the paper books—need for copyright in order to generate innovation so that people can profit from what they create? Whether it's the written word or music, or whether it's technological invention, all of that is innovation and creativity. Copyright and patent law protects that to allow for profit.

On the one hand, you are the keeper of books that have been generated through the profit motive and copyright protection; on the other hand, for particular types of innovation, you're asking for the ability to access it and go in and then basically, because of the way it works now, to be able to alter that innovation.

12:55 p.m.

Copyright and Digital Collections Librarian, McGill University, Canadian Federation of Library Associations

Alexandra Kohn

I would say that what we're looking for is a circumvention for non-infringing purposes that wouldn't particularly have an effect on those rights holders and their ability to enjoy the fruits of their labour and to enjoy the economic rights and benefits that come from that.

Josh, I don't know if you have something you would like to add?

12:55 p.m.

Copyright Officer, University of New Brunswick, Canadian Federation of Library Associations

Joshua Dickison

For me, that's the basic conversation with students who come in here or researchers who do come in here and ask for advice on how they are going to use...whether it be the book or the software behind my cellphone. That's where those books grew from; those books grew from those ideas. We were sharing those books in the same way we want to be able to share the information that's digital. Just because it's behind a digital barrier shouldn't mean that our innovation and [Inaudible—Editor] science and research should be stifled. It's following the same trajectory of what copyright has been and should be—not in regulating certain portions of what's been created or not created and not having access to that because of the medium.

1 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

Except in—

1 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound

Mr. Perkins, I'm sorry, but that's all the time we have.

I'll now turn it to Nate for one final question and answer.

1 p.m.

Liberal

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON

I just want to go back to Ms. Lovrics, specifically on CUSMA considerations. My understanding, having read CUSMA—but you could inform me otherwise—is that it's pretty specific when it comes to TPMs for artistic works. It says, really, “in order to provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms use in connection with the exercise of their rights”. Is there a different reading of CUSMA that I should be applying?

1 p.m.

Chair, Copyright Policy Committee, Intellectual Property Institute of Canada

Catherine Lovrics

Technological protection measures are aimed to protect any work, and a computer program is a work.